WHAT HEELS: Fraudulent Payments For Fraudulent Adoptions
During an investigation into how NYer Judith Leekin could adopt 11 special needs children using various aliases to collected $1.68 million in subsidy payments, officials uncovered a conspiracy dating back to 2005 to generate phony adoptions to embezzle subsidy payments involving two child welfare agency officials and a Brooklyn foster care agency, reports The New York Times. Lethem Duncan, deputy director of the agency’s payments-services department and colleague Nigel Osarenkhoe allegedly created phantom adoptees and manipulated agency’s computers to mail $79,000 in subsidy payments to Stay Thompson, the fiscal director of Concord Family Services. Another check for $375,000 was mailed to a computer-services firm run by Thompson pal Philbert Gorrick to pay for work that was not performed. The four of them split the payments, with Duncan getting $100K from the scheme. They’ve all been arrested, and the charges were announced the day after Leekin was sentenced to nearly 11 years in prison.
Comments